IPL 2022: Is RCB releasing Yuzvendra Chahal a mistake?

Yuzvendra Chahal played his first game for Rajasthan Royals on 29 March against Sunrisers Hyderabad. The new RR team was phenomenal and had a great start to their campaign with a momentous win an NRR of +3.050. Chahal scalped 3 wickets of Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, and Romario Shepherd with 3/22 (4).

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The partnership and understanding of Yuzvendra Chahal and scalping wickets at the right moment was indeed a boon for Royal Challengers Bangalore franchise. With his caliber and skills, the Indian spinner grabbed everyone's attention at the beginning itself and took the Bangalore-based franchise out of dire situations way too many times. Joining RCB in 2014, he scalped 12 wickets with an economy of 7.01 in his debut season itself.

He followed it with 23 wickets in the next season. Interestingly, this remained the highest tally for an RCB bowler for a very long period of time. Chahal was the lead spinner of RCB for the longest time. The 31-year-old bowled phenomenally well in their home ground, M Chinnaswamy Stadium. This stadium is often regarded as a nightmare for spinners for its short boundaries. But Chahal on the other hand proved himself as an efficient spinner on this ground.

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Chahal's performance over the years:

RCB bought Wanindu Hasaranga 10.75 crores INR and clearly he is the replacement of Yuzi. Hasaranga is definitely a capable cricketer and is carrying the pressure of Sri Lanka's bowling lineup for over a year now. In fact, he was the leading wicket-taker in T20Is in 2021. The Sri Lankan has a lot to offer the team. But on the other hand, Chahal is the more experienced one. Playing both international and domestic cricket for the last couple of years, he definitely has a better grip on understanding the situations and batters and executes according to that. It is only a matter of time to understand if the management took the correct decision.

The Indian wrist-spinner played 113 matches for RCB in the past 8 seasons. He scalped a total of 139 wickets with an economy rate of 7.58. Even after capable bowlers, rather spinners, in the team, RCB might face the loss of not buying Chahal in the recently concluded IPL 2022 mega auction.

What do you think about this? Do you think RCB made a mistake by releasing Yuzvendra Chahal?